Ohio University officials are thinking about supplementing a smoking ban by creating mandatory health classes for students who get caught smoking on campus.
The re-education, anti-smoking classes will be required for those who are caught smoking a certain number of times after the ban goes into effect in 2015, according to local newspaper The Athens News.
School officials did not specify the number of violations a smoker will receive before being forced to take the class, but they hope the mandatory program will be an innovative way to educate students about the dangers of smoking.
"You don't' need to threaten people with fines," Vice President of Student Affairs Ryan Lombardi told The Athens News. "I get it, I don't want to dismiss that argument as a valid argument, but it also feels like a middle school or high school approach.
"College students have a higher level of developmental thinking and cognitive reasoning than for us to say, 'I've got to put a fine in place or a prohibition of some kind,' " Lombardi added.
But Lombardi also said he does not want to turn the school into a "police state." The university intends to use a "community, Good-Samaritan kind of model" to install the ban, the newspaper reported.
The ban will prohibit smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes on campus, including all 1,850 acres and even the university-owned sidewalks. Several programs will be available for those interested in quitting.
Designated smoking areas are also banned. Lombardi said students who transferred from the University of Toledo, where smoking was banned in 2011, complained the campuses' smoking zones were useless.
"People didn't think the ban was real. They (transfer students) felt like that limited effectiveness of the whole ban in the first place," Lombardi told The Athens News.
For now, Lombardi said he is working with the city of Athens to install box-type areas on sidewalks for smokers, aptly named "butt bins."
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